A DEMOLITION company’s bid to secure almost £600,000 from a property developer has been rejected after the Royal Court found that its case had not been properly pleaded.
Jersey Demolition Contractors Limited applied for summary judgment against Alexander Burnett for £598,981, plus further interest, following a long-running dispute over work on a 12-home development in St Helier.
Jersey Demolition Contractors originally launched proceedings in April 2024 seeking £282,784 for five unpaid invoices.
Mr Burnett denied the claim and alleged that he had “substantially overpaid” the company, having already handed over more than £1 million. He brought a counterclaim valued at £790,848.
The parties agreed to refer the dispute to adjudication, resulting in a 137-page decision delivered in June.
The adjudicator rejected Mr Burnett’s defence and counterclaim in full and found that Jersey Demolition Contractors was entitled to £281,238 for the outstanding work, £71,620 in interest and £218,014 towards its legal costs.
This produced a total award of £570,873, plus half of the adjudicator’s costs. Jersey Demolition Contractors later sought summary judgment for an increased sum of £598,981.
However, Master of the Royal Court Advocate David Cadin dismissed the application because Jersey Demolition Contractors’s existing pleaded case related to its original invoices – not the separate obligation it argued had arisen from the adjudication.
The Master found that this new contractual claim should have been introduced through amended or additional proceedings and fell outside the rules governing summary judgment.
The latest ruling does not determine which party is ultimately right in the underlying dispute, but Advocate Cadin identified issues in the adjudicator’s decision which “might attract closer scrutiny” – including an apparent arithmetic discrepancy involving the quantity of soil excavated and removed, disputed charges for lorries and a lack of explanation for the interest rate awarded.
He said the adjudication had taken “far longer than originally anticipated”, cost significantly more than expected and “singularly failed to shed any light on the underlying dispute”.
The original claim and counterclaim remain unresolved. Proceedings have been stayed until 1 October to give the parties an opportunity to pursue mediation or another form of alternative dispute resolution.
Advocate Cadin also urged Mr Burnett, who represented himself, to obtain legal assistance “as a matter of urgency”, warning that doing without a lawyer in a complex six-figure case could prove “an expensive false economy”.
